Sky High (Three Contemporary Novella's) (26 page)

“I…”

Then she reached out and touched his arm.

“Oh, hell.” He grabbed her, hauling her roughly into his arms and kissing her. Meg fell into him, body pressed against his, arms coming up to wrap around his neck. The kiss was too rough, but it was full of hours of anxiety, helplessly watching her through the window as she faced off against Rubiak, waiting as she dealt with an entire team of FBI agents alone. And it was full of fear—fear that for the first time in years, his cold, dead heart was feeling something and he was going to have to give it up.

His mouth moved across her cheek, over her jaw, and down her throat. Her head tipped back and he wove one hand through the lush mass of her curls, cradling it.

“I want you to stay,” he heard himself murmur against her throat.

“Yes,” she sighed.

With a growl of frustration, he shoved her back and squeezed his eyes shut. “No. I mean, you can’t.” She blinked up at him in confusion. He pushed past her, striding into the living room, dragging his hands through his hair and fisting them hard in frustration. “Meg, you should stay the hell away from me. I’m awful. Fuck. I was gonna be unselfish. You see? Nobody’s unselfish. I told you so. The one time I was going to be fucking noble and let you go, I’m being an asshole and asking you to stay.”

Then she was behind him, slipping her arms around his waist, resting her forehead between his shoulder blades. And God, that felt good. The kind of good he never wanted to give up.

“Maybe I want you to be a selfish asshole,” she said against his shirt.

He spun around and gripped her shoulders, crouching until they were eye to eye. “I cannot ask you to stay here in Mexico with me.”

She shook her head, but she was suppressing a smile. Her left cheek dimpled slightly when she did that. He wanted to kiss that little crease.

“We just met,” he continued, arguing with himself, not her. “We’re practically strangers. After what you just went through, staying in Mexico with a guy you just met is a bad idea. It’s the king of all bad ideas.”

Meg nodded solemnly, reaching out to toy with his shirt buttons.

“A terrible idea,” she agreed. Then she slipped one button free. He groaned.

“Meg, we’re talking about what a terrible idea this is.”

She stepped forward, and somehow, even though he told himself not to do it, his arms came around her, gathering her in. She tipped her face up and kissed the underside of his jaw. His eyes closed and his head fell back.

“Mmm, let’s go back to that part about me staying, because I liked that part.”

“I’m terrible, Meg. Too old for you and too messed up.”

She chuckled, a surprisingly knowing laugh coming from her. “You think I’m not messed up after this? And you don’t get to decide what’s good for me.”

One of his hands slid up her back, between her shoulders, to grip the back of her neck. He kept telling himself to put an end to this and back away, but he couldn’t seem to stop touching her. “The last time you decided it for yourself, you picked an internationally wanted criminal.”

She sighed, working free another button. His shirt was hanging open now. “You’re going to throw that in my face for the rest of my life, aren’t you?” Then she pressed her lips to his chest. It was surprisingly easy to imagine that. The rest of their lives. His and hers. Yeah, he’d tease her about Rubiak forever, until it stopped being something painful and became just a funny anecdote.
“Hey, honey, tell them how we met, again.”
He shook his head to clear it of that shockingly potent vision, but it wouldn’t stop, and Meg was still in his arms, kissing his chest, tugging his shirt back off his shoulders. Did he really think he could keep fighting this?

“Garrett?” Her hands slid through his hair and he shuddered.

“Yeah?” His left hand had slipped up under her shirt, his palm spread over the warm, smooth skin of her back.

She kissed his collarbone, the hollow at the base of his throat. She swiped her tongue along the tendon of his neck, and then she kissed just below his ear. “Ask me to stay here with you,” she whispered.

His hand tightened on her neck, angling her face up to his, and he kissed her, tasting the sweetness of her mouth, the fluid heat of it setting him on fire. “Stay,” he murmured. “Just stay.”

“Okay,” she finally managed on a breath.

He kissed her until the panic in his chest began to ease. She was staying. He wouldn’t have to let her go. This was madness, and a bad idea, but he wouldn’t hurt her. He’d do his damnedest to get this right and not hurt her.

“You know this is a terrible idea,” he told her as he unbuttoned her shirt. “You should probably be alone for a while to get over things.”

She nodded as she unbuckled his belt. “Yeah, that would be smart. David even gave me a brochure about counseling, dealing with my grief and stuff.”

He pulled her shirt down her arms and tossed it on the couch. “David’s right. You should go back to New York and see a therapist and put this all behind you.”

“I probably should.”

He kissed her as he unfastened her bra, drawing it down her arms and sending it to join her shirt. She was glorious and sweet and so, so much more than he deserved. He felt humbled that he had been given a chance at something this lovely and unsullied. It was equal parts thrilling and terrifying, but the fear eased when Meg wrapped her long, bare arms around him, pressed her breasts to his chest and kissed him. He couldn’t remember to do much of anything but breathe when she did that, and then only barely. He put his hands under her arms and lifted her until her legs wrapped around his waist and he carried her to the bedroom.

“You’re probably supposed to take things slow,” he told her as he set her down and they both went to work stripping off their jeans.

“Yep, very slow,” she agreed, reaching for the waistband of his boxers. He took care of them for her, and then slid her underwear off, running his palms down the sleek, pale length of her legs as he did so. He gave her a tiny push and she fell back on the bed, grinning at him as he joined her. His hand trailed up her body from her hip, to her waist, up her ribcage and over her breast, across her chest, until he was cradling her face. His thumb rubbed along her lower lip and she stared up at him, eyes half-closed, lashes shadowing across her cheekbones. Some long-dormant emotion percolated through his chest, one he could scarcely believe had found root in his withered soul. But it was there, throwing down roots, pushing up fragile new tendrils. It would grow if he gave it room to, if someone encouraged it. That someone lay underneath him, smiling up at him as she traced the line of his jaw with her fingers.

“You’re probably not supposed to fall in love with anybody else right away,” he said gruffly.

She nodded, her expression soft and pensive. She ran her fingertip around the edge of his lips. “Right. Falling in love right now would be a crazy thing to do.”

He kissed her, gentle and brief. “It would be. So you should definitely not fall in love with me.”

Her legs came up to wrap around his hips and he settled himself against her. “Okay,” she agreed. “I definitely won’t fall in love with you. Because you’re a cynic who doesn’t even believe in love.”

He grinned as he palmed her breast, drawing a satisfying little sigh out of her. “Love is for bright-eyed optimists like you.”

She shifted her hips under him and he hissed in pleasure. “What would a jaded old misanthrope like you ever want with a reckless dreamer like me, anyway?”

He chuckled and cupped her face, looking into her eyes, feeling something perilously close to joy for the first time in years. “We’d be a disaster together.”

She smiled up at him. “Agreed. We can’t ever fall in love.”

“I promise I won’t fall in love with you.”

“And I won’t fall in love with you.”

“At least not right away.”

“Sure,” she giggled. “A few months, at least.”

He nipped at her chin. “Or weeks.”

“Weeks,” she sighed.

“A week,” he amended.

“A few days,” she added.

“Tomorrow. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

“Okay. We’ll fall in love tomorrow.”

“That sounds entirely sensible.”

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